Pests can cause damage to raw materials, structures, crops, food, livestock, and other human concerns. Conventional pest monitoring apparatuses often facilitate locating, deterring, and/or eradicating pests by deploying an attractant (or bait) that the pests are inclined to chew for purposes of collection and/or consumption.
Many conventional pest monitoring apparatuses must be physically inspected (e.g., manually disassembled) to visually determine whether, and to what extent, the pests are chewing (or otherwise depleting) the bait. For example, in current termite monitoring systems, a bait matrix (or matrices) is typically inserted into a physical station housing that is itself inserted into a cavity in the ground. During foraging, termites searching for food encounter the station, enter the interior of the station housing and begin feeding on the edible bait matrix or matrices. The bait typically consists of non-toxic materials, or alternatively a mixture of non-toxic and toxic materials (i.e. a pesticide active ingredient).
Pest monitoring systems may be employed to determine when control treatments should be applied and/or used, for example, as disclosed in WO 2017/011574, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. The success of a pest monitoring system for the detection of pests (e.g., termites) depends on its ability to identify the presence of pests. The relative ability of a system to discern legitimate presence of pests without false positives (indications that pest are present when they are in fact not) or false negatives (indications that pests are not present when in fact they are) is a key element to a robust and accurate pest presence determination. Improving this system to quickly identify the presence of pests increases the likelihood of controlling pests, minimizes the risk of incurring damage, and reduces false indications of pest presence.